A good mounting place for a large flat screen display (such as a TV) is often high on a wall, for example, above a fireplace. Such mounting location may make it necessary or desirable to lower the display for user watching from a convenient location in a room. In the course of lowering the TV, it may need to clear an obstacle, for example, a fireplace below the mounting location. The force for lowering and raising the TV may be provided, for example, by linear actuators.
It is desirable to allow convenient watching of the TV from some angle, that is, for user watching positions that are not necessarily directly in front of the wall mount. Towards this end, a swiveling mechanism may be included to provide for right-left swiveling with respect to the TV's vertical axis. Borrowing from aeronautics (Tait-Bryan angles) and analogizing the TV to an aircraft with its nose pointing in the direction normal to the screen and pointing away from the wall, the swiveling would provide yaw or heading adjustment; we can alternatively call the angle that the axis normal to screen would form with an axis normal to the wall an “azimuth,” “azimuth angle,” “swivel position,” or “swivel angle.”
Typically, when the TV is raised, it should end up substantially flat against the wall with portions of the wall mount assembly retracted into the wall, so that the TV and the wall mount assembly do not protrude too far into the room. A residential wall may be about 3½ inches in thickness. Facilitating mounting of the wall mount mechanism inside such relatively thin walls may be important.
A wall mount assembly may be installed in a smart home or business, i.e., a building with various interconnected appliances, security systems, monitoring systems, and other interconnected electronic devices. Facilitating mounting and operation of wall mount assemblies in such buildings may be important.
A wall mount assembly may or may not have its own remote control device. It may be important, in some circumstances, to activate the wall mount without a separate remote control device. For wall mount assemblies with separate remote control devices, it may be desirable to facilitate installation of the receivers of the remote control devices and ensuring reliable operation of the remote control devices, regardless of the position of the TV.
A wall mount assembly may have a broader mechanical operational envelope than the particular installation environment allows, potentially causing the wall mount assembly and the TV mounted on it to collide with various items of the environment, such as a mantel/fireplace, side walls, furniture, and other obstructions. Facilitating mounting of wall mount assemblies in such locations and avoiding repeated bumping into environmental obstructions may be important.
When a wall mount assembly is installed above a fireplace, there is a danger that a fire will be lit in the fireplace, intentionally or not, while the unit is extended, causing the display mounted on the wall mount assembly to overheat and be destroyed. Facilitating safe mounting and operation of wall mount assemblies in such locations may be important.
Wall mount assemblies may need to accommodate various displays. Facilitating operation of wall mount assemblies with a range of display weights may also be important.